Comparative Literature Commons^™

Le Pouvoir Du Sang Féminin Dans L’Art Contemporain Arabe, Jana Mrad

Regards

After the 1970’s performances, and at the time the feminist collectives, whose artistic approaches often recall menstruation, emerged, feminine blood also found its place in the contemporary Arab art scene. Driven by a desire of emancipation and freedom, some Middle Eastern artists seized the feminine blood and made it into a paradigm in order to shed light on the female body and the way the latter is lived, perceived and controlled. By taking on this taboo, they found a way to elude censorship, waive the rules, cross the limits... in order to free women’s wounded bodies.

Résumé

Après les performances …

Le Corps Anamorphosé Dans Le Théâtre Marocain : Cas De Capharnaüm De Latefa Ahrrare, Imad Belghit

Regards

Given the territorial and cultural differences, some Moroccan plays produce a particular corporeality around which the scene is articulated. We then witness a questioning of ethos, a morality that incorporates postures and dispositions of the body. The show entitled Capernaum Auto-Sirate by Latefa Ahrrare is part of this scenic dynamic peculiar to the construction of corporalities in the context of contemporary Moroccan theater. The performance of this actress raises existential questions through her presence on stage and via a body subjected to the process of unveiling.

Résumé

Compte tenu des différences territoriales et culturelles, certaines pièces de théâtre marocaines produisent …

What Can A Body Do? Answers From Arab Cinema, Laura U. Marks

Regards

Baruch Spinoza’s statement “We do not know what a body can do” argues that bodies learn their powers not from divinely imposed laws but through experience in the world. Thought must pass through the body, in a way that menaces both existing thoughts and the body as it is at present. Great works of contemporary independent cinema in Arabic-speaking countries express the body’s forces of becoming in numerous ways, some of which this essay tracks: from not yet living to cultivating molecular forces, enfolding powers, expressing volatile passions, coming to life, and attaining adequate ideas. Some of these dynamics are …

Pays Rêvé (2011) De Jihane Chouaib, Joseph Korkmaz

Regards

The scenarist and director Jihane Chouaib returns, after a long absence, to her native country that she left during the war. She visits South Lebanon where she was born and wanders with her sister, who’s a dancer, in the places that marked her childhood. Her peregrinations are nostalgic and her memories are bitter-sweet. Her path crosses the path of the Lebanese-Canadian playwright Wajdi Moawad, of the director and journalist-photographer Katia Jarjoura, and of the French-Lebanese director Patric Chiha. To all these immigrants, Lebanon is the dreamed country that Jihane Chouhaib recalls through her view and her poetic comments.

Résumé

La …

Le Pouvoir En Images : Les Affiches Politiques Au Liban Entre 2005 Et 2010, Elie Yazbek

Regards

During the turbulent period following the assassination of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in Lebanon, political posters were an important medium used by rival political parties to impose specific imagery on the public, contributing to set up a partisan discourse linked to the political position of each one. A war of images and slogans then took place, based on an audacious revaluation of the notion of image, reconsidered as both a symbol and an icon. The classical figurative representation system inherited from the Renaissance was confronted with ideological considerations that created a rupture and proposed original models of images.

Résumé

Durant …

Café Central, Joséphine Van Glabeke

Regards

Écriture blanche imprimée sur une tente en toile rouge vif, avec l’indication « Beirut » en exergue, pour rappeler où l’on se trouve…

The Missing Archive Of Loss, Zeina G. Halabi

Regards

The article examines the power of visual archives and the implication of their absence on the work of mourning. It explores the photographic work of the Iranian artist Azadeh Akhlaghui, who retroactively assigned visual identities to the unrecorded death of prominent Iranian figures. The scenes of death, reconstructed in highly staged photographs, operate as the guardians of collective memory insofar as they enable the work of mourning – a process of reckoning with loss that ultimately frees the collectivity from enduring melancholia.

Résumé

L'article examine le pouvoir de l’archive visuelle et les implications de son absence sur le travail de …

Introduction, La Rédaction De « Regards »

Regards

Dans ce deuxième numéro de la nouvelle formule, Regards se penche sur la question du portrait et de l’autoportrait, qui occupent une place prépondérante dans l’histoire de l’art. La peinture et la littérature, tout autant que le théâtre, le cinéma et les arts visuels, ont tous été tentés de saisir, avec leurs caractéristiques respectives, les traits d’une personne, connue ou anonyme, tandis qu’écrivains et artistes se sont, à un moment ou à un autre, focalisés sur la représentation de soi.

Changing Body And Society: A Speculative Examination Of Portraiture In Choucair’S Non-Representational Corpus, Kirsten Scheid

Regards

What ways do portraits relate people to aesthetic practices and social configurations when representational and individualizing assumptions that ensue from figurative art cannot be assumed? If social being is not given, an art act might be seen to affect primarily an artist’s relation to the possibility of subjectivity. The idea that the audience of an artwork includes the artist herself raises questions about her self-understanding and social being.
Building on my ethnographic research, I conduct a speculative examination of portraiture in relation to the career of Saloua Raouda Choucair towards founding a local art history. To conduct my review, I …

Portraits De Téléspectateurs Turcs : Enquêter Au Coeur Du Quotidien, Nese Öztemir

Regards

Dans le cas de la recherche en SIC, le portrait s’avère être une méthode adaptée pour pénétrer dans le contexte « naturel » de réception et ainsi rendre compte de ce qui se passe « autour de » la télévision. En ce sens, la pratique télévisuelle en Turquie constitue un levier intéressant pour étudier la façon dont l’organisation genrée du monde domestique travaille les rituels de réception. Comme le résume Pasquier (1999 : 233), regarder la télévision, c’est vivre une expérience organisée et socialement normée.
En s’appuyant sur les portraits individuels, travaillés dans le cadre d’entretiens semi-directifs menés dans deux …

Chouchou, Figure Gravée Dans La Mémoire Collective Du Théâtre Libanais, Rawan Kachmar

Regards

Chouchou is the nickname of Lebanese artist Hassan Alâ’ed-dine (1939-1975). Hassan founded the Lebanese National Theatre (1965-1975), the first daily theatre in Lebanon. This theatre produced, during a ten-year period, twenty-six comedic plays in which Chouchou played the main character. Who is Chouchou, though, and how did he turn into a star in the eyes of the Lebanese general public of theatre? Chouchou — with his strong Beiruti accent, a vortex of extravagant movements, a sensitive soul with a fragile heart, a conman with his distinct moustache — appropriated his own unique physical and speech mannerisms, which rendered him a …

جان شمعون وتاريخ لبنان المعلّق, Hady Zaccak

Regards

Jean Chamoun is one of the main Lebanese documentary filmmakers. After taking part in the Palestinian Political Cinema in the seventies, he documented, with his wife, the Palestinian filmmaker Mai Masri, the main events of the Lebanese War, the resistance in South Lebanon in the eighties until the liberation of the South from Israeli occupation in 2000, and the 2006 war. In his work, Chamoun focused on the human being in his daily life and continuous struggle for dignity under the strain of history. His social and political documentaries, as well as his sole fiction drama – extremely popular but …

العروض الفنية المعاصرة – التجهيز والأداء الفني تأثير التراث والمجتمع والسياسة, Hana Kaaki

Regards

A review of contemporary artistic practices in Lebanon in relation to tradition, the socio-cultural context of production, and politics.

Beyrouth Vagabond, Pascale Feghali

Regards

Starting from the filmed narrative of three characters — Abou Youssef, a homeless person found during the day at the Sanayeh public garden; a security person in charge of a crumbling building in the Grand Hotels’ sector; and Fatmeh, who squats in an abandoned property in the same sector — this article introduces us into the heartland of Beirut through the eyes of tramps and vagabonds. It is made up of narratives and counter-narratives built on elements of reality but that, in fact, speak of another dimension of reality where truth is no longer an issue. The stories are set …

La Naissance De L’Autofiction Silencieuse Dans Le Cinéma D’Elia Suleiman : « Hommage Par Assassinat » (1992), Sandra Fatté

Regards

This article questions the link between the aesthetics of silence shaped by Suleiman and his quest for identity. Through the analysis of the second short film by this Palestinian director, Homage by Assassination (1992), we underline this aesthetic and its stakes. In this film, Elia Suleiman incarnates ES, the silent character who appears for the first time on screen; he will be present in his three subsequent feature films. The story takes place one night during the Gulf War in a New York apartment where ES investigates the notion of identity. We introduce the notion of silent autofiction before analysing …

En Quête D’Image(S) : L’Emploi Des Archives Pour La Construction D’Une Mémoire (Visuelle) Palestinienne, Charlotte Schwarzinger

Regards

By relying on the works of two Palestinian directors – one being a found-footage documentary and the other an experimental piece – this article examines the importance of archives in the elaboration of Palestinian visual memory. Through its complex cinematographic history and the “missing image / ‘invisibled’ image,” Palestinian creators today use the medium of film to bear witness to their presence. The author aims to think through the use of archives in this struggle against invisibility and toward the recognition of a history, a culture, and a memory that are constantly threatened by erasure. At the border between historical …

Iconoclasme, Blasphème Et Liberté De L’Art, Hassouna Mansouri

Regards

Based on two films – La Ricotta by Pier Paolo Pasolini and The Message by Mustapha Akkad – this paper examines the relationship between art and religion. At the core of this debate lies an opposition between two semiotic approaches, defined by Umberto Eco as in verbis and in factis. In dealing with works of art, I will highlight the connection between these two concepts and the idea of “The Open Work.” I will then argue that the conflict arises from a shift in the debate from aesthetics to politics, and thus revolves around a certain margin of tolerance …

الهامش باعتباره خياراً والتحلّي بالهشاشة مقابل العنف, Abdullah Al-Kafri

Regards

.قراءة في بعض ما يُقدَّم ضمن مشهد فنون الأداء في بيروت خلال عامي 2017 و2018

« Regards », Nouvelle Formule, Joseph Korkmaz

Regards

Après vingt ans d’existence, la revue Regards se métamorphose entièrement. D’une revue annuelle limitée à une diffusion interne et rédigée en grande partie par des enseignants et des étudiants de l’Institut d’Études Scéniques, Audiovisuelles et Cinématographiques (IESAV) de l’Université Saint-Joseph de Beyrouth (USJ), elle passe à une publication semestrielle et comprend désormais un comité scientifique et un comité de lecture internationaux. Elle s’ouvre également aux contributions de chercheurs et d’universitaires, aussi bien locaux qu’étrangers...

Mémoire Et Conflit Dans « Le Dernier Jour Du Printemps » (آخر يوم في الربيع" 2018") De Fidaa Zidan, Najla Nakhlé-Cerruti

Regards

Last Day of Spring (آخر يوم في الربيع" 2018") is a monodrama written and performed by Fidaa Zidan (فداء زيدان, b. 1989), premiered in July 2018 at the National Palestinian Theatre/El-Hakawati in Jerusalem. The play tells, in the first person, the story of a young girl from a Druze village in the Galilee who finds herself alone with her parents after the death of her brother during his military service in the Israeli army, compulsory for men of the Druze community in Israel since 1956, and who had been buried in a military cemetery. The sister wants to fulfil her …

La Mémoire Comme Ressource Et Enjeu De Lutte Dans Les Documentaires Syriens De L’Après 2011, Nicolas Appelt

Regards

In Syrian cinematographic creation – essentially documentary – which escapes the control of the regime, memory occupies an important place in the representation of the conflict that tears the country apart. Drawing from three Syrian documentary films shot after 2011 – Houses without Doors, 194, Us Children of the Camp and The Taste of Cement – we will put into perspective how the memory of one side is mobilized as a resource for representing the conflict, including after leaving Syria, and, on the other hand, how it is an issue in reclaiming the story of this conflict, in a …

De L’Historien Au Citoyen : Une Nouvelle Génération D’Artistes Libanais À La Conquête De La Réconciliation D’Après-Guerre, Joséphine Parenthou

Regards

Twenty-eight years after the ceasefire, the Lebanese civil war remains a constant theme for Beirut artworks and speeches, whereas society and institutions have made it a taboo. Art constitutes a fortunate entrance for apprehending the social world and its evolutions in a context of a long post-war period. The effectiveness of the reconciliation process, even its takeover by artworld actors, can be measured through unofficial paths. Moreover, the transformation of war social representations within the artworld, between a war generation and a post-war generation, reflects a redefinition of both the artist’s figure and function in its relationship to politics: formerly …

Decay As Political Metaphor In Ely Dagher's "Waves '98" And Mounia Akl's "Submarine", Joey Ayoub

Regards

Lebanese cinema serves as a useful tool with which to assess postwar dynamics given the dominance of the civil war in artistic production since 1990. As the first postwar generation reached adulthood, we have been witnessing the inevitable rise of a “second wave” of postwar Lebanese cinema – defined as the generation of filmmakers born towards the end of or after the civil war. This essay analyses two postwar Lebanese films, Ely Dagher’s 2015 Waves ’98 and Mounia Akl’s 2016 Submarine, as unique responses to a feeling of despair brought about by the city/nation, explored through the theme of …

Ya Omri (104 Wrinkles) De Hady Zaccak, Joseph Korkmaz

Regards

Elle est dure, la vieillesse. Simone de Beauvoir en sait quelque chose. Ici, l’âge de Henriette (104 ans), l’héroïne du film et grand-mère maternelle du réalisateur, ne laisse place à aucun euphémisme. Elle n’est pas une personne âgée, ni une femme d’un certain âge, mais bel et bien une vieille, et même une très vieille dame, car les stigmates des années vécues sont flagrants […]

Entretien Avec Hady Zaccak, Joseph Korkmaz

Regards

Pourquoi un film sur votre grand-mère ? Aviez-vous un rapport particulier avec elle ou vous vous êtes intéressé à elle parce qu’elle est un cas rare d’une centenaire encore alerte ? Quand est-ce que vous avez commencé à la filmer ?
Un film sur ma grand-mère car le documentaire est un moyen de lutter contre la mort et de préserver la mémoire de ceux qu’on aime […]

« Cinematheque Beirut » Entretien Avec Nour Ouayda, Yara Nashawaty

Regards

En juin 2018, Cinematheque Beirut, un projet dédié à la conservation de l’héritage cinématographique libanais, fut inauguré par l’association Metropolis Cinema. Ce dernier-né est sans doute son projet le plus ambitieux, car il résulte d’une multitude d’initiatives déjà mises en place par l’association et ne pourrait réellement évoluer qu’en s’inscrivant dans la durée. De plus, miser sur la préservation d’un héritage en danger relève d’une lourde responsabilité auprès d’un public souvent sceptique, témoin impuissant du bafouage, voire du sabotage, de son héritage culturel depuis le début de la guerre civile, puis durant la période dite de reconstruction dans les années …

Filming Against The System In North Africa: Pioneering Women Documentary Makers And Their Common Aesthetics, Stefanie Van De Peer

Regards

This article draws attention to the pioneering women of North African documentary making, and specifically their work in addressing the image of women on screen in rapidly changing societies. Highlighting the creativity of the filmmakers in defying the contemporary censor or addressing taboo topics such as women’s rights, the history of women contributing to politics, or women’s roles in the wars for independence, this article uncovers neglected “feminist” histories and the ways in which women documentary makers tackle audio-visually challenging topics. The films under discussion show their creative potential to address difficult themes through a poetics of permissibility. This is …

« L’Insulte (L’Affaire No. 23) » De Ziad Doueiri, Joseph Korkmaz

Regards

Comment un incident trivial – une dispute entre un Libanais chrétien et un ouvrier palestinien – peut-il devenir une affaire nationale à cause d’une simple insulte ? Le vrai sujet du film est le ressentiment que ressentent les chrétiens de Beyrouth-Est envers les Palestiniens, leurs anciens ennemis durant la guerre civile. La confrontation met en lumière l’évolution de la haine et l’impossibilité d’un pardon trente ans après la fin de la guerre. Le réalisateur fait ainsi preuve d’audace, traitant de front la question de l’amnésie/amnistie qui permit, de manière peut-être artificielle, la fin des combats.

Entretien Avec Vatché Boulghourjian, Joseph Korkmaz

Regards

Interview with Vatché Boulghourian, director of the movie Tramontane (Rabih), 2016, around the difficulties of representing the memory of civil war through the trials of a blind orphan.

Résumé

Entretien avec Vatché Boulghourian autour de son film Tramontane (Rabih), 2016, et des défis de traiter la mémoire de la guerre à travers les tracas bureaucratiques d'un orphelin aveugle.

الفنون المعاصرة من خلال أعمال ربيع مروة, Hana Kaaki

Regards

The article deals with the works of Rabih Mroué and its place in contemporary artistic practices in the Middle East region. The question of the study centers on the specificity of contemporary practices and the creative process of the artists in question, and the redefinition of Aesthetics – at least the traditional meaning of the concept – in light of the transformations of artistic thought and achievements.

Résumé

L’article traite des travaux de Rabih Mroué et de la place qu’il occupe dans les pratiques artistiques contemporaines au Moyen-Orient. Cette étude se concentre sur les spécificités du processus créatif de l’artiste, …